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CHILLICOTHE — Before Friday night’s game against Zane Trace, Unioto coach Matt Combs wrote down the Pioneers’ weaknesses on his team’s scouting report.
It read, “Not many.”
The Pioneers used a fundamentally sound defense to frustrate the Shermans all night long. However, Combs’ group countered with a swarming defense of their own.
And that, in a nutshell, was the biggest takeaway. Two superb defensive efforts led to what some would call an ugly night on the offense end.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
But when the dust had settled between two SVC titans, Unioto (5-2, 5-1 SVC) had done just enough to knock off the previously undefeated Pioneers by a 48-36 final — pulling away late at the free throw line.
“It was just about staying the course,” Unioto coach Matt Combs said. “[Zane Trace] is very well-coached, they’re efficient offensively and they’re sound defensively. We can pressure the ball as well as anyone else, but we can get out of our gaps at times. [ZT] very seldomly makes mistakes defensively. So it becomes frustrating when you maybe go three, four or five trips down without scoring. It’s very easy to start panicking. But I thought our kids weathered that storm. That’s all you can do in a game like this. It’s an absolute slugfest.”
Zane Trace (7-2, 5-1 SVC) had a 2-0 lead before a second ticked off the game clock. Landon Robinson hit two free throws after a technical foul was charged to Unioto during warm-ups.
Noah Houston added to that lead, making it 4-0 with 6:15 left in the first quarter. The Shermans answered with a 3 from Jaxon Zickafoose, but ZT used a putback from Gunnar McCullough and a 3 from Houston with 4:07 to go ahead 9-5 early.
After the two traded buckets, Unioto’s David Long nailed a 3 with 1:49 remaining to give his team its first lead of the night at 12-11. But the Pioneers pulled back in front at 13-12 by the end of the quarter, thanks to a runner from Ezra Rippeth.
PHOTOS: Images from Unioto’s win over Zane Trace
After more back-and-forth action to begin the second quarter, Zickafoose scored with 5:42 to go, putting the Shermans up 18-15. Just 18 seconds later, Caden Cutright stepped in front of a pass and went the length of the floor for a layup that extended the lead to five.
When Perkins sank two free throws with 4:41 left, it put Unioto up 22-15 and capped an 8-0 run. However, the Pioneers ended the half on a 6-0 run of their own — a lay-in from McCullough, a putback from Houston and a breakaway score via Judah Hanks to trim the deficit to 22-21.
After the break, both offenses went ice cold.
Zane Trace methodically added to its lead. The 6-0 run became a 13-0 scoring burst, giving the Pioneers a 28-22 advantage — their biggest lead of the evening — with just over three minutes to play.
The Shermans were able to cut that deficit to 28-26 by the start of the fourth, but were forced to endure a scoring drought that lasted over 9:54 of game time.
The final eight minutes had a different script, though.
Hoops tied the game with 7:22 to go, draining two freebies, before Unioto went ahead with 6:58 remaining, thanks to a forced turnover and a runaway bucket from Cutright.
With 5:35 left, Hoops made it a 32-30 lead before Zickafoose and Cutright began to make their marks on the defensive end. The two guards’ high-energy style of play allowed the Shermans to cause havoc, create turnovers and finish on the offensive end.
“We think Jaxon and Caden are two of the better on-ball defenders in the league,” Combs said. “We have a few options there, but Jaxon is kind of on a different level when it comes to on-ball pressure. He’s a bucket full of energy and that’s the way he is. It’s a weapon. I think it does disrupt even good point guards who don’t turn it over. It takes them out of their rhythm.”
By the 1:59 mark, the Shermans had a 40-34 lead and had done so, for the most part, without Blake Fitch. The junior guard had been forced to the bench with four fouls. But in his absence, Hoops, Perkins, Zickafoose, Long and Cutright all picked up the slack.
It was one of the determining factors between a win and a loss.
“We need that. That’s why I got on those guys after the Westfall game [a 61-58 loss on Dec. 10],” Combs said of Hoops and Fitch. “Those are two guys there that have played close to 90 basketball games. Our experience has to step up and I’m proud of Blake Hoops tonight for doing that. I was a little nervous when we had to take Blake Fitch out. We don’t play without him a whole lot. So I was proud of our other guys for allowing us to be able to do that.”
Down the stretch, Unioto hit its foul shots to close out a win and force a three-way tie — the Shermans, Zane Trace and Westfall — atop the SVC standings.
In the fourth quarter alone, the Shermans outscored Zane Trace by a 22-8 margin.
“I thought our ball pressure maybe wore on [Zane Trace] a little bit,” Combs said. “When I look at our scouting report, I always list strengths and weaknesses. Where I had their weaknesses, I had, ‘Not many.’ But I had one and it was, maybe, depth. They had a couple of great players out and they didn’t really go past six. We played 10. So I thought, maybe, we wore them out. Maybe we did and maybe we didn’t. But for whatever reason, we weren’t turning it over in the fourth.”
Statistically, Hoops led the way for Unioto, tallying 10 points, eight rebounds, five assists and five steals. Meanwhile, Zickafoose had 11 points, Perkins added 10 points and seven boards, Cutright chipped in with seven points and six assists, and Fitch ended the night with seven points as well.
McCullough led all scorers with 15 points alongside a game-high 14 rebounds while Noah Houston also helped out, scoring nine points for the Pioneers.
Zane Trace, after a second consecutive loss to Miami Trace on Saturday, will be back in action on Dec. 27 at Amanda-Clearcreek. The Shermans get back to it on Monday at Washington.
“For us, it’s offensive efficiency,” Combs said. “There’s times we take quick shots and we did that tonight a little bit. We take the first 3 that even looks like it’s open or we’ll rush a mid-range shot. Later in tonight’s game, when we were purposely trying to run some clock, that’s when we got some of our best shots. So we just have to be a little more efficient. When we’re playing really good teams, like we did tonight and like we’re going to do here this week, if we give away possessions, we’re in trouble. So we have to get better at that.”
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